Saturday, November 22, 2008

Astrological properties and influence

While it can be said that people, social dynamics, and events "influence" each other through their interactions, and that planets and stars have "properties" because they are objects, it cannot not be said that planets and stars directly influence people, society, or events, because there is no direct interaction between them. However, if people and events "reflect" celestial objects by a type of symmetry as astrology purports (i.e. as above—so below), then the planetary or stellar "influence" is indirect. It comes from people and events that are influencing—or trying to influence—each other while diachronically reflecting astrological properties.

This is why it is best to think of celestial objects as having astrological properties rather than astrological influence. Being ambiguous, the latter can be construed to mean direct physical influence, animism, determinism, etc., which it is not. Thinking in terms of properties instead of influences relieves researchers of the unfortunate semantic burden of assumed causal interactions where none are claimed. Free of this burden, researchers can get on with their work, which is based on mapping principles that everyone, in principle, can agree to.

It is not so important to know how celestial objects come to have astrological properties or how symmetries operate. These are just things that are empirically observed, like any other properties or behaviors in nature. Researchers need to be circumspect in their language to infer astrological properties through symmetrically diachronic observations of people and events.